1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a terminal for receiving digital broadcasts, and more particularly to a digital broadcast receiving terminal for providing broadcast program information for a specific time period and a method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typically, digital broadcasting includes digital broadcasts of high fidelity picture and sound in place of conventional analog broadcasting techniques. Recently, with the development of digital broadcasting technology and mobile communication technology, research and development focuses on providing digital broadcasts while the user is moving. In particular, digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) service has been developed using a mobile communication terminal to provide multimedia broadcasts through a personal portable receiver having a non-directional antenna mounted thereon, or through a receiver mounted in vehicle, even while the user is moving.
FIG. 1 is a view illustrating the construction of a prior art system for implementing the DMB service.
The system for implementing the DMB service includes a data sending center 10, a satellite 20 and receiving devices such as a mobile communication terminal 30, a receiver for vehicles 40, a receiver for home use 50, etc.
The data transmission unit 10 compresses and modulates DMB data (for example, image, sound and data signals) and sends the modulated DMB data signal to the satellite 20. The satellite 20 receives, amplifies and then frequency-converts the signal for transmission to the ground. The receiving devices 30, 40 and 50 receive, demodulate and decompress the signal to restore the received signal to its original state.
One advantage of the digital broadcasting service as described above is that it has fairly good channel efficiency in comparison to the analog broadcasting service. That is, with analog broadcasting, only one program can be transferred through one physical channel. However, with digital broadcasting, several programs can simultaneously be transferred through one physical channel. Accordingly, the digital broadcasting service can provide fairly many programs, and so usually provides program information so that the viewers can easily find and select their desired programs. For this, an EPG (Electronic Program Guide) service is used.
The EPG service is a service that broadcasting stations (or SOs (Service Operators) of the cable broadcasters) provide with various kinds of program information about the broadcasts so that viewers can easily locate and select desired programming. For example, the EPG service provides information (hereinafter referred to as ‘EPG data’) such as title, telecast start time, telecast end time, etc., of a respective program.
FIG. 2 is a view illustrating an example of conventional EPG data stored in a digital broadcast receiving terminal.
The EPG data includes program information (for example, program name, program explanation, viewing grade, etc.) by channels and by time periods.
Referring to FIG. 2, if it is assumed that a user selects a channel 1 (“CH 1”), the digital broadcast receiving terminal extracts program names (for example, “FIRST PROGRAM”, “SECOND PROGRAM”, . . . ), program explanations (for example, “FIRST PROGRAM EXPLANATION”, “SECOND PROGRAM EXPLANATION”, . . . ), viewing grades (for example, “18”, “15”, . . . ), etc., of programs telecast by time periods (for example, “09:00˜10:00”, “10:00˜11:00”, . . . ) from the EPG data to provide the “CH 1” broadcasting program information to the viewer.
Typically, the EPG data is provided for a predetermined period or when the EPG data is changed. Accordingly, the receiving devices 30, 40 and 50 illustrated in FIG. 1 may receive and store the EPG data, create and provide the digital broadcasting program information to the user in response to the user's request, or may receive the EPG data in response to the user's request and then create and provide the digital broadcasting program information to the user.
FIGS. 3A to 3D are exemplary views explaining broadcasting program information provided according to the prior art. That is, FIGS. 3A to 3D illustrate examples of views displayed to guide the broadcasting program information to the user.
FIG. 3A shows an example of an initial view for channel guide, and FIG. 3B shows an example of a view displayed when the user selects “Video Channel” from the view of FIG. 3A. FIG. 3C shows an example of a view displayed when the user selects “ch06” from the view of FIG. 3B, and FIG. 3D shows an example of a view of a program explanation (for example, actors, director, viewing grade, etc.) of the “Old Boy” displayed when the user selects “Old Boy” from the view of FIG. 3C.
The guide views as shown in FIGS. 3A to 3D are displayed over the whole display unit of the digital broadcast receiving terminal or on a part of the display unit together with the actual broadcasting data. In the former case, the user must discontinue viewing the broadcast currently displayed to confirm the digital broadcasting program information. In the latter case, the displayed views for the broadcasting data and the digital broadcasting program are small, inconvenient to view the broadcast or to confirm the digital broadcasting program information.
in addition, the prior art typically displays the broadcasting contents (i.e., programs) of each channel by time periods as illustrated in FIG. 3C. This also causes an inconvenience in confirming the information about programs telecast through several channels in the same time period. That is, in the prior art, there is no way to determine the programs broadcast at a specific time without going through the entire EPG.